The present invention relates to a wrapping method for producing packets.
The present invention is particularly advantageous for producing so-called "soft" packets of cigarettes, to which the following description refers purely by way of example.
In the manufacture and conditioning of tobacco items in general, and cigarettes in particular, so-called "soft" packets are produced comprising an inner wrapping--normally made of foil and enclosing a group of cigarettes arranged side by side in a number of rows--and an outer wrapping--normally formed from a sheet of wrapping material folded to form a cup-shaped body enclosing part of the inner wrapping, the rest of which projects outwards from the open end of the outer wrapping.
Soft packets are produced on packing machines comprising a wrapping wheel with a number of peripheral seats, each of which is fed with a respective group of cigarettes in a respective inner wrapping, and with a sheet of wrapping material with given surface portions gummed beforehand. To form the outer wrapping, the wrapping wheel normally folds the sheet of wrapping material on to the inner wrapping by feeding the seats in steps through a succession of folding stations which are normally substantially equally spaced between a loading station, at which the groups of cigarettes are loaded on to the wrapping wheel, and an unloading station at which the finished packets are unloaded.
The above wrapping wheel design of known packing machines poses problems in the event, for any reason, the wheel is arrested during production. Since the sheets of wrapping material are gummed before being fed on to the wheel, and, on account of the substantially equal spacing of the folding stations, substantially all the seats on the wheel between the loading and unloading stations house unfinished packets, stoppage of the packing machine, even for only a few seconds, automatically results in rejection of a relatively large number of packets, due to the gum on the sheets of wrapping material drying and so preventing the packets from being completed.